Common sense and biblical clarity on this problematic movement:
The Health and Wealth Gospel has been around for well over half a century now. Beginning in America, it has spread throughout much of the world. I have penned over 100 articles on this movement, showing how it really is a false gospel and an unbiblical gospel.
I happen to own around 22 key books which cast a careful eye over the claims and specious teachings of this movement. One of the earliest books (perhaps THE earliest) to offer a critical assessment of this ‘theology’ was a little 22-page booklet that Gordon Fee had written.
I refer to The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels (The Word for Today, 1979). It is an important work for several reasons: 1) As mentioned, it may have been the very first careful evaluation of the movement; 2) Fee was one of our greatest New Testament scholars; and 3) Fee was not coming from the outside on this – he was a Pentecostal and an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God.
In this article I will concentrate on the first half of this booklet: the ‘prosperity gospel’. His opening words are worth repeating here: “American Christianity is rapidly being infected by an insidious disease, the so-called wealth and health Gospel—although it has very little of the character of the Gospel in it.” (p. 1)
He goes on to say that “this new ‘gospel’ seems far more to fit the American dream than it does the teaching of Him who had ‘nowhere to lay His head’.” (p. 2) He looks at some major biblical and theological matters, saying this:
“The basic problem with the cult of prosperity lies right at the point which the evangelists themselves consider to be their strength—the interpretation of Scripture. Indeed, much that is said by them has a biblical ring to it, which is precisely why so many well-meaning people fall into the trap.” (p. 2)
Their claim that it is God’s will that all his children have financial prosperity flies in the face of the totality of Scripture. Fee looks at some of the usual texts they present for their views, such as 3 John 2 and John 10:10. He reminds us of what God expects of us when it comes to riches and prosperity:
In the full biblical view wealth and possessions are a zero value for the people of God. Granted that often in the Old Testament—but never in the New—possessions are frequently related to a life of obedience. But even here they are seen to have the inherent double danger of removing the eye from trusting God and of coming to possess the possessor. Poverty, however, is not seen to be better. If God has revealed Himself as the One who pleads the cause of the poor—and He has throughout Scripture—He is not thereby blessing poverty. Rather, He is revealing His mercy and justice in behalf of those whom the wealthy regularly oppress in order to get, or maintain, their wealth.
This carefree attitude toward wealth and possessions, for which neither prosperity nor poverty is a value, is thoroughgoing in the New Testament. According to Jesus, the good news of the inbreaking of the Kingdom frees us from all those pagan concerns (Matt. 6:32). With His own coming the Kingdom has been inaugurated—even though it has yet to be fully consummated; the time of God’s rule is now; the future with its new values is already at work in the present. We have been “seized” by the Kingdom; our old values, the old way of looking at things, is on the way out; we are joyously freed from the tyranny of all other lords. In the new order, brought about by Jesus, the standard is sufficiency; and surplus is called into question. The one with two tunics should share with him who has none (Luke 3:11); “possessions” are to be sold and given to the poor (Luke 12:33). Indeed, in the new age unshared wealth is contrary to the Kingdom breaking in as good news to the poor. Therefore, if one has possessions, precisely because they have no inherent value, he can freely share them with the needy. But if one does not have possessions, he is not to seek them. God cares for one’s needs; the extras are unnecessary; the rich man who seeks more and more is a fool; life does not consist in having a surplus of possessions (Luke 12:15). (pp. 7-8)
The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospelsby Gordon D. Fee (Author)
He looks at how this “careful attitude toward wealth and possessions” is so characteristic of Paul. Fee then says this of the movement:
“First, despite all protests to the contrary, at its base the cult of prosperity offers a man-centered, rather than a God-centered, theology. Even though one is regularly told that it is to God’s own glory that we should prosper, the appeal is always made to our own selfishness and sense of well-being.” (p. 9)
And he offers these two further concerns:
Second, this false gospel presents a totally false theology of giving. In the New Testament, as well as the Old, God’s love and giving are predicated on His mercy, and therefore in their every expression they are unconditional. God loves, and gives, and forgives—unconditionally no strings attached. The human response to divine grace is gratitude, which expresses itself in identical unconditional love, and giving, and forgiving. The cult of prosperity, on the other hand, tells us that we are to give in order to get. It is by giving to the Lord, and to the poor, Copeland assures us, that we are guaranteeing our own prosperity. Furthermore, he candidly admits that he will give to the poor only on the condition that he is also given an opportunity to tell them about Jesus. As noble as that end might sound, the means to the end is manipulative. It is evangelism tied to the apron-strings of the American profit-motive mentality.
Third, such an Americanized perversion of the Gospel tends to reinforce a way of life and an economic system that repeatedly oppresses the poor—the very thing that the prophetic message denounces so forcefully. Seeking more prosperity in an already affluent society means to support all the political and economic programs that have made such prosperity available—but almost always at the expense of economically deprived individuals and nations.
The best antidote to this disease, therefore, is a good healthy dose of biblical theology… (pp. 10-11)
A fitting biblical passage to summarise how we should look at these matters – one that Fee would have been well aware of – is Proverbs 30:7-9:
Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the Lord?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
